


banes

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Be Careful What You Wish For, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Future Fic, Minor Implied Suicidal Ideation, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-22 04:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13755987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: The galaxy belonged to Rey. He belonged to Rey. And still it was not enough. Whatever emptiness burned inside of him magnified itself in her, had long since grown out of control, worse than any black hole. He could be sated by her touch, her lips on his, the comfort of words he no longer believed that she believed:you’re not alone, I understand, I’m here with you, we can do this.There was nothing that could sate her.





	banes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firelord65](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelord65/gifts).



Rey stepped onto the _Retaliator’s_ bridge, her step whisper quiet across the black, reflective marble. She’d once argued against it; this was a military vehicle, entirely utilitarian, not a diplomatic courier with nothing better than pointless displays of wealth to show for itself. Save that for the politicians. Who would they ever need to impress that couldn’t be cowed by the battery of weapons that seemed to line every inch of its hull? Who would not be impressed by him, she’d asked, or her?

“Must we continue to compensate for… what exactly _are_ we compensating for here?” she’d also asked, pretending she did not know the specter-haunted corners of his mind inside and out. Back then, he still hadn’t known if it was a failed kindness, a reminder that he didn’t need to compensate for anything, or an intentional dig.

He no longer wondered.

Her boots scuffed now, purposeful, the sound scraping against Kylo’s eardrums, her disappointment manifested in that brief, cacophonous stab of noise like a knife through the silence. She knew what he was thinking about. Of course she knew. There wasn’t a thought in his head that she couldn’t rifle through at her leisure.

She did not laugh—she never laughed—but he sensed the champagne bright vindictiveness of her amusement regardless. It lapped and fizzed at his awareness, a constant buzz of annoyance when she came too close. His lip twitched, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing the unhappiness she cultivated in him.

A skeleton crew skirted the edges of the room or cowered at the weapons and defense stations housed in the alcoves that lined the central walkway. Kylo stood at the far end of that walkway, near the yawning wall of transparisteel that served as the only protection between the entire bridge and death by vacuum. Some days, it looked fragile enough that a single punch of Kylo’s fist would shatter it. And some days, it seemed as impenetrable as a ten-meter thick slab of the purest durasteel, a cage of his own making as it was neither the former nor the latter, but merely a normal pane of the stuff.

The air grew sour with the very palpable fear of his support staff. Kylo might have been named Supreme Leader, but they all of them knew that Rey of Jakku paid that title nor his power any mind. He could not protect them from her whims.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said. Her voice sparkled like diamonds and cut just as sharply. “Do you think they chose it purposefully?”

Kylo snorted. Only Rey would find beauty in a sandy backwater. “They may be sentimental fools,” he answered, “but no one chooses Tatooine if they have a say in the matter.”

“They’re desperate.”

 _You made them that way,_ he thought, uncharitable. Between the two of them, they could have put an end to this long, long ago. Instead, she let them go. Time and time again, she let them slip through her grasp, like she didn’t quite believe they were the enemy and so wouldn’t simply put an end to their suffering. He wearied of this game, this chase, but she still thrilled at it. She led every charge and always, always refrained from allowing anyone to take the killing shot. The Resistance left a trail of blood behind it after every skirmish, limping away on wounded, broken legs, never tiring of the false hope Rey allowed them to take with them. 

The last person who’d tried to countermand her stand down order only succeeded in getting the entire ship executed—save for the would-be hero herself, who rotted in a cold, dank cell on one of Rey’s forgotten worlds to meditate for the rest of her natural life on the mistake she’d made that day.

She stepped past him and pressed her hand, spread in a five-pointed splay, against the transparisteel. The tips of her fingers whitened under the unforgiving pressure of her touch and a part of him longed to take hold of her, pull her away, truly give up on the entirety of this mission she’d taken on for the both of them. Her face reflected no emotion; she stood, a harsh and somber sentinel, and looked upon a world she’d taken for herself and felt—nothing. Nothing that Kylo could sense or see anyway.

“Do you think they know?” It wasn’t until she turned her head and looked at him that he realized the question wasn’t a rhetorical one or otherwise meant for a person who wasn’t here. “That I could end this?”

He thought of Finn, of Dameron, of his moth—he thought of them all, huddling in a recessed home on the edge of the Dune Sea, and frowned.

She’d quartered the First Order and savaged its viscera for all she needed and wanted, but everyone knew the _Retaliator_ , even out here, where word rarely traveled: her personal flagship, a gift from a time when he’d believed them to be on the same side, their own side. Together. Before he’d realized the truth.

It was only Rey’s side that mattered, her commands, her goals, even when those commands and goals couldn’t settle on life or death, freedom or punishment, for friends or enemies.

“They know,” Kylo answered. From up here, there was no way to see the impact that knowledge had on the Resistance’s survivors, but Kylo didn’t need to see them to know that they were scrambling, holding their breath, waiting to see if this was finally, finally the end.

They’d rebuilt so many times.

Maybe they were tired. Maybe they were ready for it to be over. Maybe Rey would do them a favor this time and put them out of their misery.

On very, very rare occasions, he sympathized.

The galaxy belonged to Rey. He belonged to Rey. And still it was not enough. Whatever emptiness burned inside of him magnified itself in her, had long since grown out of control, worse than any black hole. He could be sated by her touch, her lips on his, the comfort of words he no longer believed that she believed: _you’re not alone, I understand, I’m here with you, we can do this_.

There was nothing that could sate her.

Not even him.

Not even what he’d originally offered her.

His hand clenched into a fist at his side, the strength of the Force gathering in his palm. Her gaze sharpened and she smiled. Her eyes snapped to his arm, following the line of it down to his fingertips; she declared, pointed, “They shall survive to fight another day.”

He could end this.

“Of course,” he answered, smiling as benignly as he could in return.

He would end this.


End file.
